In supermarkets and retail stores floor fixtures such as freezer and refrigerator cases, floor shelving, and product displays are susceptible to damage due to collisions with shopping carts, floor scrubbers, pallet jacks, stock carts, and the like. For example, freezer and refrigerator cases typically include a glass or transparent plastic door for viewing the product without opening the door. The glass can be shattered, or the plastic scratched, upon impact with shopping carts, or the like. Since the body of many of these floor fixtures is constructed of lightweight aluminum or hardened plastic, it can be easily dented or cracked by such impacts.
Furthermore, floor fixtures such as shelving are intended to hold product to be sold, and since space is generally at a premium for most retailers, this shelving is typically densely packed with product. When a collision occurs to the shelving, it is possible that the product may be knocked from the shelf resulting in the breakage of glass containers or the denting of cans. In either case, the retailer incurs a loss of product.
In order to protect floor fixtures from collisions and jarring impacts, supermarkets and retail stores have employed protective guards around the fixtures to prevent these occurrences. These guards are conventionally constructed as a horizontally extending aluminum rail, which is mounted into the floor. These rails may be covered with vinyl or include a vinyl insert to provide for impact absorption or add color to the guard. These guards are positioned around the exposed perimeter of the fixture at a distance sufficient to protect the fixture from impact but not hinder access. These guards, however, provide only a limited range of vertical protection for the floor fixture from collision due to the small vertical extension. If the rails on each side of the fixture are not joined at the corner, the fixture will have increased exposure to damage by collision at the corner position, and the retailer may incur increased maintenance costs to repair the fixture.
One style of commonly used protective guard consists of vertical metal posts or formed metal arced shapes mounted to the floor. The vertical metal posts do not envelop the corner, thus narrowing the zone of protection. The formed metal arced shapes can be difficult to mount directly in the floor, often requiring cement to secure them in place.
Another style of protective guard consists of a corner guard having a hollow plastic body with a rear wall shaped to conform to the corner of a protected structure, and a front wall shaped to surround the corner. An example of such a protective guard is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 6,260,237, which is hereby incorporated herein by reference to the extent that it shows the use of the corner guard device generally. A leg structure is secured to the rear wall, the leg structure having at lease one leg portion for supporting the corner guard on the floor. The corner guard can have a metal horizontal rail secured to the front wall of the body, having a surface that extends outwardly from the front wall. The remainder of the corner guard body is made from polyethylene. The leg structure is an integral metal unit having at least a pair of vertical legs and a horizontal connector joining the pair of legs, the connector abutting the rear wall of the body. The rear wall includes a projecting retainer housing with vertical passages for passage of the vertical legs, and a projecting stop for engaging the leg structure.
The above-described protective corner guard provides the desired protection to the corner at which it is mounted, and installation is made easier with only two legs to fix to the ground. However, the installation of the protective guard can be made difficult by the structure of the pair of vertical legs and a horizontal connector joining the pair of legs, in addition to the relatively thick and inflexible cross-section of the plastic body forming the corner shape. Such a design requires a significant degree of precision when one is forming the mounting holes in the ground or floor into which the legs are positioned to install the corner guard. If the mounting holes are not precisely spaced, the pair of legs may not fit well, and/or may not fit at all.
In addition, in some instances the plastic portion of the protective guard may not be sufficiently strong to withstand impact forces from collisions with various objects. For example, in warehouse environments, the size and bulk of carts and machinery can create substantial inertia that can overrun or snap the plastic molded bumper section of such conventional guards.
Accordingly, what is needed is a protective corner guard providing a sufficient and desired degree of protection of corners where collisions with heavier industrial-type equipment may occur, while also providing some degree of adjustment with regard to the installation of the protective corner guard. The present invention is directed to this need.